If you have an NVIDIA® nForce 4-SLI chipset and are using Parallel ATA (IDE) hard drive(s) or SATA drives without a RAID configuration, you should be able to use the Microsoft® native storage driver built into Windows®.

• This software needs only to be used on the Bistro4-SLi™ system if you have multiple Serial ATA drives on the onboard NVIDIA® SATA RAID Controller Hub that you would like to create a RAID array for.  This floppy disc creator will allow you to install the drivers for the SATA controller during a clean OS installation, using F6 to install drivers from floppy during the OS installation.
   
• If you are not sure whether or not you require this software, please contact technical support for clarification.

If you are using the attached drives in a RAID array and would prefer to manage your RAID array from within Windows® (not required), the nForce Unified Driver/Software Package includes the RAID software utilities that can be installed after the operating system has been installed.

FOR CLEAN OS INSTALLATION

If you have reformatted your boot drive(s), enabled the NVIDIA® SATA controller in your motherboard's BIOS (with RAID enabled for the applicable SATA ports), have created a RAID array in the NVIDIA® RAID BIOS menu (by pressing F10 when prompted during the boot process) and would like to install the related SATA RAID drivers during Windows® XP installation by using the F6 command to install additional drivers, follow the instructions below.

Installation Details (download link follows below)
If you are installing the operating system onto a new RAID volume on the NVIDIA® SATA connectors, you must pre-install the RAID driver using the F6 method described below:

1. Label a standard 1.44 MB floppy disc "NVIDIA RAID DRIVER (SCSI)", then completely format it, making sure that the floppy is undamaged and no errors are present on the disc, keeping the disc inserted in your floppy drive.
    
2. Download, then execute the f6_nforce4sata_666.exe storage controller/RAID class drivers file below.
    

   Clicking on the Unzip button should automatically extract the needed F6 installation files to the root of your formatted floppy drive.

   Click on OK, then close the WinZip Self-Extractor.

    

3. Ensure that the following 14 files are located on the root directory of your floppy disc:

   disk1
   idecoi.dll
   nvata.cat
   nvata.inf
   nvata.sys
   nvatabus.sys
   nvcoi.dll
   nvide.nvu
   nvraid.cat
   nvraid.inf
   nvraid.sys
   nvraidco.dll
   nvuide.exe
   txtsetup.oem
    

4. At the beginning of the operating system setup, press F6 to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver.  Note: This prompt appears at the beginning of the installation routine and only appears for a few moments, so watch for it closely.  After pressing F6, setup will temporarily continue loading drivers and then you will be presented with a message stating, 'Setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices installed in your system'.  You will then be prompted with a screen to load support for mass storage device(s).
    
5. When prompted, select 'S' to Specify Additional Device.
    
6. When prompted, insert the floppy disk you created and press enter.
    
7. At this point you should be presented with the following 2 selections:
    
   1. NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller (required)
   2. NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER (required)

   Highlight the NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller and press enter.
    

8. When prompted, select 'S' to Specify Additional Device, then press enter.
    
9. At this point you should be presented with the following 2 selections seen previously when performing step 7 above:
    
   1. NVIDIA nForce Storage Controller (required)
   2. NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER (required)

   This time, highlight the NVIDIA RAID CLASS DRIVER and press enter.
    

10. Press enter again to continue. Leave the floppy disk in the system until the next reboot as the software will need to be copied from the floppy disk again when setup is copying files.
    
    Important:  Please follow the Windows Installation prompt to eject the floppy disc before the system reboots.  When the system reboots for the first and subsequent times during Windows installation from a CD, you may see a prompt to "Press any key to boot from CD."  DO NOT PRESS a key at this point, as the OS installation will have already copied the needed installation files to your hard drive, and needs to be booted from your hard drive during this portion of the install routine.
     
11. During Windows setup, create a partition and file system on the hardware-based RAID 0 or RAID 1 volume as you would any physical disk, Notice that the size of the RAID 0 volume is the combined capacity of the two Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives if they are of the same capacity. If they differ in capacity, your RAID 0 volume will be twice the size of the smaller of the two SATA disk drives.  If you have a RAID 1 array, the size of the RAID 1 volume is only the capacity of one of the two Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives if they are of the same capacity. If they differ in capacity, your RAID 1 volume will be the size of the smaller of the two SATA disk drives.

Please Note

• If you are already running drives attached to the NVIDIA® onboard controller and wish to update the drivers only, you may download the applicable RAID/BASE F6 floppy creator and direct Device Manager to update drivers from the created floppy, if desired.

• Please visit the NVIDIA® website
• Previous drivers archives